


Them Bones

by softporecorn



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Ableism, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Internalised ableism, Light Angst, M/M, also some ghost hunting, and bants, it's not all doom and gloom in here!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 10:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12862401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softporecorn/pseuds/softporecorn
Summary: Shane knew that he was eventually going to have to tell Ryan about his chronic illnessHe just hadn't expected it to happen at three in the morning in a questionably haunted house





	Them Bones

Ryan and the rest of the Buzzfeed crew finding out about his condition was inevitable. Shane knew it was. He was getting worse, his pain levels frequently reaching the point where he could hardly block it out, hardly function as a real person. Keeping up appearances at work was getting exponentially more difficult with each new challenge video he filmed, each new shitty floor in each new haunted house he was expected to sleep on. Eventually, something was going to break.

Shane had just hoped it would be out at a bar one night, plied with enough alcohol that he could confidently and jokingly talk about his illness without getting everyone too bummed out. There were really very few ways to soberly confess that you couldn't remember the last time you weren't in pain that didn't just leave everyone sitting there awkwardly. 

But as luck would have it, the conversation ended up happening at three o'clock in the morning in the middle of nowhere in some supposedly haunted location, after being awoken by his best friend and co-host freaking out about a door slamming somewhere in the distance.

Shane hadn't been doing too badly that particular day. His back had been aching something fierce, but it wasn't too much worse than usual. Nothing he couldn't handle. They'd walked around the haunted house with very little going awry - as always, Ryan would startle at the tiniest of things. Floorboards creaking underfoot became something following them, windows rattling in the wind remnants of angry spirits. 

"I swear I heard something whisper in my ear just then."

"It was probably the wind. Or your jacket,"

"My jacket? In what way does any sound my jacket make resemble a human whisper?"

"You know, when denim rubs against denim and..." Shane reached out and rubbed his own jacket sleeves together, demonstrating how the rustling of fabric could easily sound like a human voice. 

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"What, and the idea that a ghost came over and whispered in your ear is so much more believable?"

"Yes!"

And then Ryan was in psyching himself out mode. Once he thought he'd had a confirmed experience, there was no going back. He'd be up all night, too petrified to sleep. Shane knew that, but he himself was way too exhausted by getting up the stairs to the super duper haunted bedroom they were meant to be sleeping in to care. The back pain had started crawling further down into his legs, and he knew he'd regret being in just a sleeping bag on the floor, but the only other option was saying something to his already-freaked out friend and he just didn't have the energy left in him.

"Please at least try to get some sleep," Shane grumbled as he snuggled down further into his sleeping bag. "I don't want to drive all day tomorrow because you're too tired to."

"I don't know how you manage to sleep in these freaky places, man."

"I just know that nothing's going to hurt me. It's the same as sleeping on the floor anywhere else, just with more cobwebs."

Already he was nodding off to the sound of Ryan rambling, sitting up and alert. It was a few hours before he was awoken.

"Dude, did you hear that?"

"No, Ryan, I was sleeping like a normal person."

Ignoring the jibe, Ryan clambered out of his sleeping bag in search of the source of the noise. 

"There's something out here, Shane.”

“It’s probably just a rat,” Shane grumbled, awareness spreading through his body as he took stock of his aches and pains.

“Shane, please."

“I'm not getting up.”

“Why not?”

Fucking hell, this wasn't how he wanted to do this. For a second he toyed with the idea of just lying, saying any myriad of things that ranged from somewhat tired and grumpy sounding to downright cruel. But Ryan looked so on edge that Shane couldn't bring himself to cut him down for once. Not to mention that when Ryan worked himself up this much, he didn't tend to take no for an answer.

“I physically can’t. My hip’s jammed.”

“Is it a ghost?”

“No, it’s not a ghost,” he groaned, frustration evident in his voice. Of course Ryan would instantly leap to the supernatural conclusion. “It’s just my joints playing up. It happens.”

"What do you mean, it happens?”

Shane closed his eyes, wishing he could be anywhere but here and having this conversation. It was a shitty enough one to have when you weren’t lying on the floor of a haunted house, hip sitting out of its socket. Vulnerability didn't exactly come naturally to him, and there was very little that was more vulnerable than being partially paralysed in a haunted house, talking about your illness. So he just gritted his teeth and shut down the line of questioning, grabbing his thigh and pushing on it.

“Just give me a few to just get it back into place and I'll get up and investigate your stupid ghosts."

“Do…do you need a hand?” Ryan asked, finally seeming to have wound down at least a bit from his usual paranormal induced panicked frenzy.

“I’m fine, Ryan. I can manage.”

His friend frowned at him, looking torn between offering more help and going to check on their potential ghost. Shane hoped he’d take the latter option - popping his hips back into place was awkward enough without someone watching him.

Thankfully, Ryan did turn away, shining his torch down the hallway. He frowned, shaking his head and closing the door.

“There’s nothing there."

“See, I told you.”

The smaller man lay down next to him again, and for a minute they lay there in silence, Shane rotating his hip in the hope that it'd click back into place.

"Are you sure you don't need a hand with that?"

"Ryan, I know what I'm doing. I've done this often enough that I can take care of myself." Plus, the thought of his best friend helping him made him feel really uncomfortable. He didn't know why - maybe it was admitting that he had an issue was hard enough. Better Ryan be a spectator and bystander who knows but doesn't really  _know_ than have him be actually involved in his illness.

"So...this has been going on for a while?" Ryan asked hesitantly, obviously unsure of how to tread in this conversation. Once again, Shane toyed with the idea of lying or blowing his best friend off, but they'd come this far. May as well commit.

"Practically my whole life. It's gotten particularly bad in the past few years, though."

“What is it, some kind of arthritis?”

“Nah, it’s elhers danlos syndrome.”

“Ah," Ryan said knowingly. "Never heard of it.”

Shane let out a dry laugh. “I’m not surprised. It’s a genetic connective tissue disorder. I got it from my mum's side of the family. Basically, my body doesn’t produce enough of the stuff that’s meant to hold your bones together, so my joints all dislocate really easily. It's supposedly pretty rare, but the EDS gene is a dominant one so like...”

"More common than it seems?"

"Basically."

“It sounds kinda like shit.”

“You can say that again.”

"And there's no...no treatment? No cure?"

"It's genetic, Ryan. The cure is eugenics. I do like physio and shit to manage the symptoms, but..."

And there it was. The bummer factor. There really aren't that many ways to wrap 'hey, I'm sick and I'm not going to ever get better' in a pretty dressing of jokes and light heartedness. Especially with a dislocated hip consuming most of your thought power.

They lapsed back into silence, and Shane hoped that would be all to the conversation. He was doing his best to move his hips in the ways that usually popped them back in, but the stubborn joint didn’t seem to be getting the message. He couldn't get the leverage he needed.

"Ryan, are you awake?"

His friend murmured an affirmative.

"I might actually need a hand with this one."

And hell, Ryan was a better man than he was, not at all dragging his feet to scramble out of his sleeping bag. "Just tell me what you need."

"Just let me get my leg at a right angle and then lean into it?"

It was always different explaining getting joints in to a third party. When he was doing it himself, he could just intuit it, feel where bone scraped and muscles screamed and stop when needed to. With Ryan he had to position him carefully, tell him not to move too quickly but also not too slowly. Finally, Shane's joint popped in with a loud clunk.

"Jesus christ," Ryan said. "Maybe all the audio recordings we've gotten are just you and your joints."

 Shane couldn't help but wheeze, feeling the tension drain out of the room. 

"Are you suggesting that ghosts are fake and my joints are the real demons?"

"I mean, obviously your clacky hips can't account for all the paranormal occurrences, but..."

"Maybe the reason I don't believe in ghosts is because my skeleton is the real ghost?"

The pair of them broke down into wheezes again, before they settled back into a slightly more comfortable quiet.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner, man? How many times have you had incidents like this and just not said anything?" There was no accusation or real hurt in Ryan's voice, for which Shane was grateful.

"I dunno. People sort of treat you like glass when they find out half the time, and the other half the time they claim that there's nothing wrong and you're just making it up for attention or some shit. I just got sick of it and stopped telling people unless it was strictly necessary. Like, sleeping on the floor will put me largely out of action for a few days, but honestly it's worth it to watch you freak out and to get to visit all the places we visit. What's the chance you would've asked me on as your co-host if you'd know I probably shouldn't be sleeping in haunted houses."

"Pretty low," Ryan admitted. "But still, it's a huge risk. What if something happened?"

Shane shrugged. "It's not likely to kill me. Most of the time it's like tonight, so like if worst came to worst I could talk you through calling paramedics and stuff."

"I guess. I just...I guess I'd hoped you could trust me by now."

"It's more complicated than just trusting you, though. Like, it's personal. I'm sure you haven't told me every secret you have."

"I dunno, I've told you a lot. More than you probably ever wanted, in fact."

Shane laughed. "That's definitely true."

"Well, I guess I know now."

"I guess you do. And hey, can you do me a favour and maybe...just don't tell anyone else. I'll get around to it eventually, but I don't want it to become, like, office gossip."

"Sure, man. Your secret's safe with me."

**Author's Note:**

> God it's been a while since I've written fanfiction. This is completely unbeta'd and also edited entirely at 1am so the likely many errors are all my own
> 
> Feedback in appreciated - I'm semi considering making this a multi-chaptered fic about Shane sort of coming to terms properly with his disability if there's enough interest
> 
> Also I'm drawing from my own experience with hEDS and like obviously everyone experiences disability in their own way and this experience isn't my own experience or journey and it's likely not everyone or even anyone else's experience like it's just one aspect and way of living and dealing with disability


End file.
